Procrastinating doesn’t work. Even when you try to escape doing work for school, it just comes back to haunt you.
I am currently taking “Myths and Legends of the UK.” It's nothing like what I expected, and for many reasons, it’s certainly lacking. The class could have been a lot better—I expected us to read myths, compare and contrast them, and then relate them to society and culture, explaining why these particular stories have survived and how they have impacted society. Instead, we do a lot of summarizing, which is unfortunate, because the class had so much potential.
Besides reading a Welsh epic and an Irish epic, we mainly focused on two very famous myths: Robin Hood and King Arthur. I liked Robin Hood (I ended up writing two papers on it!). I didn’t know much about King Arthur. I knew a few of the names, and that was it. Guinevere, Lancelot, Sir Gawain, Sir Galahad, Morgan le Faye, Mordred, Merlin…the list goes on and on. Not only did we discuss the stories and the themes they bring up—chivalry, heroism, adventure, honor, love, war—but we talked about King Arthur the man. We looked at the various characterizations and changes he went through in the different versions. And finally, we explored the idea that King Arthur may have been a real man: a great king who fought off the Romans and helped establish England as its own country with its own rules and its own society. There are some sources to prove this—accounts of men bearing a similar name, rumors of his tomb, of Camelot, of the Round Table and the Holy Grail.
All of my other classes went on study trips, but Myths and Legends never got the chance. That was a little sad, for I love being able to relate theory with the practical, like I did in Dublin for my Irish Literature study trip where I got walk the town that practically worshipped Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, Swift, Wilde, etc. So I was a little disappointed that we weren’t going to “find Camelot.”
The last weekend before I was set to depart, I decided that I really wanted to do a day trip in southwestern England. I was worried that I’d spent too much time outside of the place that I’ve called home for four months. So I talked to Su and Emma (ASE staff) and asked for some recommendations. They pointed me in the direction of Wells and Glastonbury. I’d heard of them through my guidebook reading, so I decided to go. Wells was a short stop on the way (just a peek in the Cathedral) to Glastonbury. Glastonbury was a cute English town, and already, I was glad I came despite the obscenely long bus ride (close to two hours to travel about 35 miles….I am looking forward to American highways!). I first hiked up the Tor, which is basically a giant hill in an otherwise flat region, to get splendid views, and learn about how it used to be a place of execution.
I then headed to the ruined Abbey because it looked neat. I didn’t find out until I was inside that Glastonbury Abbey is the main place Kind Arthur is supposedly buried! I couldn’t believe that out of all the places I could have gone, I ended up at his tomb. He was supposedly discovered in simple coffin, buries with his queen, in an old graveyard a few meters from the Abbey in the late 1100s, and was moved to a marble tomb in 1278. People flocked to the Abbey—because King Arthur was a figure of worship. Everyone knew who he was; he was a hero.
Unfortunately, during Henry VIII’s attack on the Catholic church, he destroyed many places of worship in the early 1500s. Sir Dustan, the owner, tried to hold out, but he failed, and the Abbey was burned down. Everything was lost—including the tomb.
Was it really Arthur and Guinevere? Could the legends have been based on real people? We may never know. But standing over the “grave” of the king in possible sight of “Avalon,” I realized that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they were real or fictional or anywhere in between. It is the legend that matters, the themes, symbols, messages it still sends. A 1000 years later, people are still reading, studying and making pilgrimages to King Arthur and Guinevere. Loyalty to land, to your partner, to your countrymen—this is still relevant to today’s society. Men still sing up for war to “honor their country.” Chivalry, honor and love are still practiced towards others out of respect and admiration and loyalty. King Arthur is still affecting society a thousand years after he (or at least his character) died. Isn’t that amazing?
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